Hey there,
How has your week been so far? We started our week with a public holiday, which gave us time to take down the shed down the side of our property.
We bought the house just over a year ago, and we’re slowly making our way through and renovating it and changing it to be just the way we want. Doing up the side of our house has been one of the projects I’ve been looking forward to the most. You see, we took down the shed to make way for some enormous vegetable patches. I have a small veggie patch already, but this is going to be about 4x the size of it. Increasingly, I’ve become disheartened by the produce available for purchase (organic is not as easy to come by as I’d like, the stuff at the supermarket just makes me shudder….) so I just can’t wait to make my own, and having the satisfaction that I know exactly what has gone into it to make it grow. Plus, veggies last longer when you grow them yourself because you can just leave them in the ground until you’re ready to use them.
So now that the shed is down I feel like we’re finally making some progress over there! As I said, I’ve still been growing a few things – mostly herbs, some spring onions and some chilli.
We’ve had a great season of basil this year. I made sure I went out to the veggie patch every couple of days and watered it, and I’ve been giving it a seaweed solution once a month, and it seems to have paid off, particularly with the basil, which is about as high as my waist.
One of the benefits has been an abundance that has enabled us to make things like this refreshing pesto. It is much lower in oil than the usual ones, so it feels more refreshing and less heavy. It is delicious with veggie sticks, but would go great on top of a burger or as a base on some puff pastry/ pizza.
- 4 big handfuls basil leaves
- 1 clove of garlic
- ½ cup cashews
- 2 Tablespoons olive oil
- 3 teaspoons lemon juice
- 2½ Tablespoons water
- Soak the cashews in some water for about an hour to make them easier to blend. Then drain the water and place all the ingredients in the blender and pulse gently until it forms the consistency you're looking for.
Are you growing anything in your veggie patch?
Have a great week.
Robyn xx